Broken-Down Bench in a Concrete Gazebo

Broken Down Bench in a Concrete Gazebo

Sitting in a concrete gazebo
Across from a small, broken bench.
One half is almost level;
Fighting to keep balance, keep honor,
Keep some hold on purpose:
That Platonic form known as Chair.

The other half sags
For unknown reasons,
The wooden slats
Bowed or pinched,
The entire seat positioned at an
Increasingly impossible angle.

One cannot help but wonder:
Was this the work of
Cedar slats' slow suicide,
A woebegone wood -- wet, worn and weary,
Under the daily deluge of
Nature's bi-polar personality?

Or,

Was this act--
Deliberate or otherwise,
Carried out,
By perhaps a
Behemoth of a human,
Closer to Leviathan than Man?

Did one such as this
Cruel, carnal colossus
Make his way some hidden night
To bring ruination and vertigo
To such a small and noble creature
As an unassuming park bench?

Come to think of it, I myself
Have been described at various times
In life as wielding a
Not-insignificant size and stature.
My chair, on My side of the concrete gazebo,
Is doing just fine.

Truly we have encountered a holy mystery
Here in this place.
Who am I to change the deep spiritual sanguinity
That keeps the very air from crackling,
The foundation of the universe
From bursting apart?

Far better that I depart this Place
But not this Presence,
Imbued now with a wisdom and
More deeper understanding
Of the very filament of this
Precious gift we call Life.

Also, it has started to rain.

For what it's worth -
Gazebo in the picture
is directly across
from my house -
we live on the last street
in the whole state.
That gazebo was occupied
on poem day,
forcing me to hobble
one gazebo over.
In fact, this photograph
had to be taken
close to the gazebo
where I was sitting &
contemplating the bench.
I feel you need to
know these things.
Selah.

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